According a Reuters article, Ray Benson’s Western swing band Asleep at the Wheel is making its 40th year this month.
During a four-decade career, the band has earned nine Grammy Awards, launched a critically acclaimed theatrical production, performed with everyone from Willie Nelson to President Obama to the Fort Worth Symphony, released more than 25 albums and had an airport roadhouse named after its frontman. […]
Those initial expectations were modest. “I was hoping that in 10 years I would have enough money to buy the farm that I lived on and go back to farming and teach music in a music store. That was what I was considering would have been a very successful career, if I got a 10-year run of playing and making records,” he says. “But it just kept going, and there’s more to be done.”
The band was formed in West Virginia, but moved to California on the invitation of country-rock outfit Commander Cody.
Benson says the California chapter was an important time in the band’s history. “We met a peer group — Commander Cody, Dan Hicks & the Hot Licks, Elvin Bishop — but we also got to meet the originators of western swing like Tiny Moore. We learned from them. Then we were so broke, we took a job backing up Stoney Edwards, and that put us on an incredible journey where we wound up backing Freddie Hart, Connie Smith, LaWanda Lindsey and Dave Dudley as a country western backup band. That was an education in itself.”
In 1973, at the invitation of Willie Nelson and Doug Sahm, the group moved to Texas. It is still there.
“What took root in Paw Paw, West Virginia, came to full bloom in Austin,” Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum director Kyle Young says. “From Count Basie to Bob Wills, Asleep at the Wheel has explored the best of the American songbook, western swing style. Over these past 40 years, Ray Benson has followed his heart down Route 66 and far beyond to build a lasting musical legacy for himself and all the great players who’ve taken a turn with the Wheel.”
The Route 66 reference comes from the fact Asleep at the Wheel performs Bobby Troup’s song every night, and that band also has embarked on several Route 66 tours.
The amazing part is that Asleep at the Wheel has been performing as long as the King of Western Swing, Bob Wills, did.